The Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Mr. Joseph Osanipin, has tasked stakeholders in the industry to develop local content needed to support industry growth.
He also called on stakeholders to develop capacity and take up the responsibility of building a bright future for the auto industry as the time to achieve this is ripe.
Osanipin who was speaking on Thursday at the annual awards ceremony of the Nigeria Auto Journalists Association (NAJA), noted that the federal government can make policies to chart the path for the future of the industry but that it is the private sector stakeholders that must make it happen.
He stressed that the future of the industry was in the hands of the brand owners and practitioners seated in the hall.
He charged NAJA on creating an award for ‘Component Parts Producer of the Year.’
This, according to him was necessary because you cannot have the whole without the smaller parts.
He said: “I challenge all of us to start thinking about how to breach the gap in the local production of vehicles in Nigeria,” he said.
“You cannot get the whole without having smaller parts. So there is the need to begin to strategise on how to build parts to support the auto industry.
“I appeal to you to begin to think about what we can source locally to support the industry. We have foam that we can use to produce chairs, plastics, and glass for mirrors, all of which we can source locally to begin to improve our local content.”